Every Time We Say Good-bye
by chocolatequeen
Summary: Soulmates AU. What if your soul mark wasn't the first words you heard your soulmate say, but the last? A story told in three parts: the Doctor, Rose, and Tentoo. Major character death at the end, but it's a natural death at the end of a long, happy life. Labeled Ten x Rose, but is also Nine x Rose and ends as Tentoo x Rose.


_**The Doctor**_

The Doctor's soul mark, like almost everything else about him, marked him as an outsider in Time Lord society. Everyone bore a brand of the last words their soul mate would ever say—that was universal across all humanoid species. But the marks of all his friends and instructors were in Gallifreyan. The Doctor's were in English, a language spoken on the primitive Level Five planet called Earth.

Three words: "Yeah? See you!" When the Doctor studied English, he learned they were a casual farewell, and wondered how he was ever supposed to know if they were coming from his soul mate. It was about as useful as a soul mark as, "What are we having for dinner?" would be.

Then one day, after he'd had to destroy his people and his home, the Doctor reached for a hand in a dark basement and said just one word: Run. Five minutes later, he knew he'd met his soul mate. Rose's hand fit into his, her life fit into his, and her heart—her soul—filled the spaces left empty by the loss of his people.

From then on, he dreaded hearing her say those three words. Losing Rose was an impossible idea, and yet the brand on his arm said he would.

When he watched the Anne-Droid vaporise her, his hearts refused to believe what his mind told him. Rose couldn't be gone. If Rose was gone, then she wasn't his soul mate, and how could anyone else fill his hearts the way she did?

Jack's discovery of the teleport signal was both a relief, and a confirmation that yes, she was his soul mate. Knowing that gave him the strength to send her away. He could activate Emergency Programme One, knowing that somehow, some way, he and Rose would find each other again.

After that, every time all the evidence told him Rose was lost, he took comfort in his soul mark. As long as he hadn't heard Rose say those three words, he knew he would see her again.

That hope got him through when he had to leave her crying on the beach, because his soul mark wasn't, "I love you." He told her it was impossible because he knew that would only ensure she never gave up looking for a way back to him.

The soul mark got him through two barren years without her, plus one year that never was. (And he gave thanks every day that Rose was safe in Pete's World. What the Master would have done if he'd known he held the Doctor's soul mate…)

Two more words stoked the anticipation—Bad Wolf. Rose must have found a way. He still could hardly believe it, until Donna said, "Why don't you ask her yourself?"

The Doctor turned and ran to Rose, and not even the Dalek shooting him could kill the hope in his hearts. He still hadn't heard those words from Rose, so he knew this wasn't the end. And if it wasn't the end of them, why did it have to be the end of him—this him, that is.

His mark burned when he left Rose on the beach a second time, walking away from the gut-wrenching sight of her kissing another man who looked exactly like him—but even then, the Doctor had hope. Of course, he left before he could hear her say goodbye… because what if she used the words?

(If that was cheating, the Doctor didn't care. Nothing said you couldn't manipulate situations so you never heard the words on your soul mark. Oh, and there was an idea. When he found Rose again, he decided, he would make a rule that they never said goodbye.)

Then he was dying—regenerating—and he needed to see her. The Doctor broke the laws of Time and jumped back in her timeline to before they met, just to see Rose's face one more time with these eyes. She was just as beautiful as he remembered, her smile just as heart-stopping.

It was January 1, 2005. In two months, he'd take her hand in that basement and they'd start running together. "2005? Tell you what; I bet you're going to have a really great year."

Rose looked at him over her shoulder, her eyebrow arched in indulgent amusement. "Yeah? See you."

The Doctor stumbled back to the TARDIS. Those words—why had he come here? Not even the haunting beauty of the Ood song could heal the ache in his hearts. He would never see Rose Tyler again.

_**Rose**_

Rose was always grateful for the social more than made it impolite to look at someone else's soul mark, because it made it easier to keep her marks secret. Yeah, soul _marks_. No one else she knew had more than one, and she had three.

First, written down her arm like a normal soul mark but in super tiny script was a whole paragraph: "Rose, before I go, I just want to tell you, you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? So was I."

Then, on her right hip bone, there was a single sentence: "Does it need saying?"

And finally, the mark right over her heart read, "The Doctor and Rose Tyler… as it should be."

Rose's best friend Shireen had a theory that only one of the soul marks was real. If she was right, Rose hoped it was the first one; she liked the idea of a soul mate that thought she was fantastic. The second sounded like a bloke trying to get out of saying anything romantic, and Rose liked to hear the words. And the third… what kind of name was the Doctor anyway?

She changed her mind when she met the Doctor. He was brilliant and amazing, and when he held her hand, it fit into his like a jigsaw puzzle. The mark on her heart—that was the real one. Rose ignored the fact that her Doctor's favourite word was fantastic. That didn't mean anything.

When he sent her away, she knew she _had to_ get back to him because it was the right thing to do. She knew she _would_ get back to him because she still hadn't heard him say the words. The TARDIS must have agreed with her, because she let Rose open her heart.

The next bit was sort of blurry, and then Rose woke up in the TARDIS, and the Doctor was there, rambling about Barcelona—the planet, not the city. When he told her he was dying, she wanted to argue… and then he said the words and burst into golden light.

After her new Doctor defeated the Sycorax, he explained a little about regeneration, and Rose finally understood her three marks. She must watch her pinstriped Doctor regenerate too.

The thought made her a little jumpy every time something happened. He'd convinced her that he didn't really change when he regenerated, so she knew that even if he… well… he'd still be the same where it counted. But she liked this version of the Doctor, with his manic grin and his really great hair, and she didn't want to lose him.

In the end, he lost her, lost her to Pete's World. When Rose stood on the beach and told him she loved him and even then he couldn't get the words out in time, then she knew which soul mark was his.

She fought to get back to him—fought against Pete for the right to design the dimension canon, fought against her mum when she wanted her to just settle into their new life, fought against Mickey when he tried to say the Doctor might have moved on. And then the stars started going out, and the dimension canon started working, and finally Rose saw the Doctor again.

Her heart nearly stopped when the Dalek shot him, and she thought for sure this was the moment. When he siphoned off the regeneration energy and she still hadn't heard the words, she needed to ask to be sure—"You're still you?" His grin when he answered was enough to satisfy her that they had years together yet.

And then there were two of them. When the Metacrisis Doctor appeared with Donna, Rose had a horrible suspicion she knew what this meant. She steeled herself against him, tried to tell herself he wasn't the Doctor, tried not to love him, but her heart knew him. He _was_ the Doctor, whether she wanted him to be or not.

The Doctor—the Time Lord Doctor—took them back to Bad Wolf Bay. Rose listened as he explained his plan, his plan to leave her behind. She took both of them by the hand and drew them close, then she looked at the man in brown pinstripes that she'd spent three years fighting to get back to.

"When I last stood on this beach, on the worst day of my life, what was the last thing you said to me? Go on, say it."

The Doctor swallowed hard. "I said, 'Rose Tyler.'"

She saw the grief in his eyes and knew what was coming. "Yeah? And how was that sentence going to end?"

"Does it need saying?"

Rose closed her eyes for a moment against the searing pain of hearing the words from her second soul mark, and then she turned to the other Doctor—the one she would be with for the rest of her life.

She regretted the choice for a fleeting moment when she heard the sound of the TARDIS leaving. Then her new Doctor slipped his hand through hers, and Rose remembered she still had one mark left.

The Doctor and Rose Tyler… as it should be.

_**Tentoo**_

The first thing the Metacrisis did when he sprang into existence was check his soul mark. His heart still beat for Rose and this hand would still fit hers perfectly, but how could she be his soul mate and the other Doctor's?

_Always, my Doctor._

Those words didn't exactly ease his concerns, because anyone could say that. He shoved the worry into the back of his mind while he and Donna saved everyone, but it was still there. It was still there when he saw Rose watching him with the same wary-but-hopeful look she'd worn when he regenerated. What if the new soul mark meant Rose was going to reject him?

The Time Lord Doctor—because now they knew he was part human—was convinced Rose was still his soul mate. This half-human version of himself didn't just look like the Doctor after all; he was the Doctor. With all the memories, all the feelings, everything that made him him. Which meant no one would ever be his other half in the way Rose Tyler was.

"And what about the different soul marks?" he asked, trying to get his Time Lord self to see the impossibility in what he was saying.

But instead, he just looked at him like he'd dribbled on his shirt. "Obviously they mean the last time you see Rose is not the last time I see her. Or the other way around."

And then he'd explained his plan to leave them both on Bad Wolf Bay. He'd looked down at his work table after he laid it all out, fiddling with one of the gadgets lying there. "I figure that's when… well, she'll have to say…"

The Doctor understood then. The Time Lord's mark was a good-bye. He was going to force a good-bye, purposely create the situation where Rose would say those words to him.

He agreed, but on one condition. Rose would be allowed to choose. They'd sent her away too many times before; he wouldn't do it again.

So they stepped out of the TARDIS together onto Bad Wolf Bay, and the look on Rose's face when she realised where they were made the Doctor's heart clench. She was going to choose the Time Lord him, and he'd be left here all alone, left to find someone else who would fit into his one heart as seamlessly as Rose Tyler.

Then she took them both by the hand and asked her question: how was that sentence going to end?

Most of his time senses were gone, but when she asked that question, he felt a timeline snap into place. He looked at his Time Lord self along with Rose, knowing what he was about to do. Rose needed the words; they both knew that. She would choose the one who could give them to her.

At that moment, he both loved and hated himself. The Time Lord was manipulating Rose, using her vulnerability against her… but he was also making sure Rose stayed here with him.

When he refused to give Rose the words, she turned to the Doctor whose single human heart still belonged to her. "And you, Doctor? What was the end of that sentence?"

The easy way his name fell from her lips gave him hope, and he leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Rose Tyler, there will never be a Doctor who doesn't love you."

She grabbed him by the lapels and surged up to cover his lips with hers. The Doctor wrapped his arms around her, holding her so tightly he could feel his own ribs. Rose was in his arms, she was staying, she hadn't left him behind.

It was only when she ran toward the sound of the TARDIS dematerialising that he realised the Time Lord's soul mark remained unfulfilled, because he'd left before Rose had a chance to say good-bye.

The Doctor walked up behind Rose slowly and slipped his hand into hers, completely unsure of what her reaction would be. Now that she realised she was stuck here with him, with no TARDIS, would she regret her choice? Would she reject him?

Rose looked up at him, and he saw both pain and peace in her eyes. She squeezed his hand, and a small bit of his insecurity washed away. The larger section he hid—there was still the matter of the Time Lord's soul mark.

That one, unspoken sentence haunted the Doctor, keeping him from giving himself fully to Rose. Every time he kissed her, he heard the TARDIS' engines and expected the Time Lord to reappear and whisk her away. He saw the confusion in Rose's eyes every time he pulled back from her, but he couldn't bring himself to explain that he was just trying to protect his heart.

Until one day when he let things go to far. His shirt was off and he was unbuttoning hers when he remembered why he couldn't do this. This time, when he tried to retreat, Rose's arms curled around herself. She didn't say anything; she didn't need to. Her body language screamed hurt and rejection.

Unable to leave Rose hurting, the Doctor nearly fell over himself trying to explain. When he finally managed to get out a garbled explanation about Time Lords and soul marks, he saw the barest hint of a smile on Rose's face, which he thought was a rather unfeeling reaction.

Then she turned her arm and pointed, and for the first time, he read the soul mark he'd always known she bore there. When he saw the words from the him with big ears and leather, his eyes widened and the tiniest ember of hope sparked in his heart.

Rose's smile grew. She stood up and unbuttoned her trousers, then folded over the waistband enough that he could read the words on her hip. The words there erased all his concerns about the other Doctor. Relief made him dizzy, and he leaned forward and kissed the words the Time Lord had said to Rose on the beach. Rose would never see him again, and she'd known it for months.

Her gaze turned coy, and she shrugged her shoulders enough to send the unbuttoned shirt fluttering to the floor. The sight of Rose standing shirtless in front of him almost distracted him enough to miss what she was trying to show him. She giggled and took his hand, bringing it to her third mark.

He traced the words reverently with his fingers and felt himself finally begin to heal. The Doctor felt a pang of regret for the other Doctor, knowing the Time Lord assumed the fates would somehow conspire to bring Rose back into his life. But he had a half-naked Rose Tyler in his arms, so he couldn't bring himself to wish things were any different.

It was several years, three children, and a handful of grandchildren later when Rose sat next to his bed, holding his hand as he drew in shuddering breaths. Their children had said goodbye already and left the room, giving Rose and her Doctor the last moments together.

"I love you," Rose told him, and he smiled.

"We had a good life, didn't we?"

She opened and closed her mouth a few times, and finally just nodded.

The tears in her eyes hurt his human heart. He'd spent the last forty plus years doing anything to keep her from crying, and now he was the cause. He tried to lift his hand to her cheek to brush them away, but his arm wouldn't obey him.

Instead, he used what little strength he had to squeeze her hand. "The Doctor and Rose Tyler, as it should be."

Rose, his precious Rose, let out a little sob and bent over to kiss him. "Always, my Doctor," she whispered in his ear.


End file.
